Ultrafast Fibre to Launch Fastest Residential Fibre Plan

Ultrafast Fibre
will launch a residential, 1 gigabit per second (Gbps)
wholesale fibre broadband service across its entire network,
offering the country’s fastest residential fibre plan to
date. This will be made available in July 2014.

The
company’s premier residential product, UltraMax, will
deliver a download speed of up to 1 gigabit per second.

Ultrafast Fibre CEO Maxine Elliott said the new download
speed will provide a dramatic increase in comparison to what
most residential broadband users currently receive. “To
put it in perspective, our new 1 gigabit service offers up
to 10 times the speed of our fastest current residential
service of 100 megabits per second. To mark the milestone,
we are renaming our Central North Island urban network
‘The Giganet’,” Ms Elliott said.

The new 1
gigabit service will be offered to broadband retailers from
July 2014 and will be available in all eight centres where
Ultrafast Fibre is constructing its network: Hamilton,
Tauranga, Te Awamutu, Cambridge, Tokoroa, New Plymouth,
Wanganui and Hawera.

The wholesale price for the 1
gigabit service is $65 per month; however, individual
retailers will set the final prices for consumers. Ultrafast
Fibre will offer the 1 gigabit service plan and its
wholesale monthly price until 2020.

“Residential
users are asking the industry for fast products and this is
Ultrafast Fibre’s response,” Ms Elliott said. “For
broadband users who are still in the mindset that ‘copper
is good enough for now’, we believe this new product will
convince them of the huge benefits ultra fast fibre
provides. It stands to make a huge difference for
residential broadband users.”

Ultrafast Fibre is
also working towards launching two other new wholesale
services in July 2014 called Ultra 100, with a 100 megabit
per second download speed and 20 megabit per second upload
speed (wholesale price of $45 per month) and Ultra 200 with
a 200 megabit per second download speed and 20 megabit per
second upload speed (wholesale price of $55 per month).

“As one of the most advanced areas in the rollout of
ultra fast fibre, we are delighted to lead the way by
offering our retailing partners in the Central North Island
these groundbreaking configurations of download speed at
affordable costs,” Ms Elliott said. “We are confident
they will be game-changers for consumers who are into
multi-use gaming, major data transfer and high-definition
video, with multi-stream use now a reality.”

About Ultrafast Fibre

Ultrafast
Fibre is a Local Fibre Company (LFC) owned by Crown Fibre
Holdings, WEL Networks and Waipa Networks. It is building
13.7 per cent of New Zealand’s total UFB coverage in
Hamilton, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Tauranga, Tokoroa, New
Plymouth, Hawera and Wanganui. Ultrafast Fibre does not sell
services directly to members of the public or businesses,
but works together with the retail sector (i.e. broadband
internet providers) to supply Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB)
services on its network.

The whitebait fry - considered a delicacy by many - are the juveniles of five species of galaxiid, four of which are considered threatened or declining. The SMC asked freshwater experts for their views on the sustainability of the whitebait fishery and whether we're doing enough to monitor the five species of galaxiid that make up whitebait. More>>

The New Zealand government's accounts recorded a smaller-than-forecast deficit in the first four months of the fiscal year on a higher-than-expected inflow of corporate and goods and services tax. More>>

Steel & Tube Holdings, along with two other companies, will be prosecuted by the Commerce Commission following the regulator's investigation into seismic steel mesh, while Fletcher Building's steel division has been given a warning. More>>

• For car owners, a 13% reduction in the average Motor Vehicle levy • For businesses, a 10% reduction in the average Work levy, and changes to workplace safety incentive products • For employees, due to an increase in claims volumes and costs, a 3% increase in the Earners’ levy. More>>